The government has released more money towards its household poverty alleviation initiative, the Parish Development Model (PDM).
This has been confirmed by PostBank Uganda, the gov't distribution partner of the cash to the final recipients through its mobile wallet platform, Wendi.
Head of Agency Banking at Post bank, George William Kiyingi says money totaling up to UGX 267 Billion has been already disbursed on accounts of 5000 government-identified and vetted SACCOs country-wide with each earmarked to receive UGX 50M.
We received the latest batch of money from government on Tuesday, 09th April, to distribute to over 5000 SACCOs around the country covering over 100 districts. We completed the disbursement to all the SACCOs the following day (10th April 2024)," he says.
Kiyingi further reveals that the cash-disbursement process leveraged the Wendi platform for the quick allocations countrywide.
"The money has already been deposited on the Wendi accounts of the respective SACCOs. The SACCOs need to advise the bank on the authorized approvers as filed at the Registrar of Cooperatives." he noted
PostBank was identified as a key player in the distribution of the PDM cash to recipients countrywide. This begged for a fast and effective e-platform to compliment the brick-and-mortar bank branch network, as the latter would present operational shortcomings.
PostBank developed Wendi to boost financial inclusion and since its commissioning, Wendi has enrolled over 500,000 beneficiaries and paid over UGX 200bn, serving over 5000 SACCOs who are all beneficiaries of the gov't of Uganda PDM program.
The Wendi platform was also used to pay beneficiaries of the relocation exercise for households facing high risk of landslides in the Elgon sub-region. The exercise, launched last week in Bududa by Rt.Hon. Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja disbursed cash amounting to UGX 2.76bn to 276 households, with each household receiving UGX 10M. All payments were done in 5 minutes from initiation to money reaching the beneficiaries.
Mr. Kiyingi reiterated the bank’s purpose of fostering prosperity for Ugandans. This is being achieved through the bank’s target segments of Micro, Small and Medium sized enterprises especially those in agro business.
